RSS Feed MenuTwo years ago, Barack Obama imprudently declared that his accession to power would mark the moment “when the rise of the oceans began to slow and the planet began to heal.”
Liberals sporting “1-20-09” bumper stickers imprudently believed him.
The way that miffed liberals have been muttering about 44 lately, one might expect to see a few pasting “1-20-13” stickers on their Priuses before long.
And that was before Press Secretary Gibbs suggested that some of the administration’s critics on the “professional left” have been indulging in exotic smoking materials.
Rather than dwell on Gibbs’ pithy remarks, members of the “professional left” – at least those who inhabit the environmental movement – should reflect on observations from two of the Senate’s most visible Republicans a few days previous.
They might learn a few lessons about the fate of climate change legislation in the 111th Congress, which moved from inevitable on 1-20-09 to circling the drain a scant 18 months later.
Lesson No. 1 – Don’t put all your eggs into one basket.
When Obama swept into office accompanied by large Democratic majorities in Congress, the environmental lobby, many of whose activists inhabit the port side of the political spectrum, slipped into their strategically unwise habit of pinning all hopes and dreams on the Democratic Party.
They didn’t expect the D’s to be quite so feckless. And, they didn’t remember that the worm always turns and today’s political tide is tomorrow’s target when those pesky voters are in a throw-the-bums-out mood.
It pays to make friends on both sides of the fence. It costs when you don’t.
As Lindsey Graham put it: “They don’t have much infrastructure on the Republican side. So, when you hear the environmental community is mad at you, everyone says, ‘Tell me something new.’ It’s not like a support group you lost.”
Lesson No. 2 – Legislation that has bipartisan support has a better chance of gaining traction than legislation that doesn’t.
The day before President Obama’s birthday, Mitch McConnell dropped by the Oval Office for some one-on-one face time. McConnell broadly hinted that he and 44 were talking turkey about moving legislation in 2011, when Republicans will surely have a larger caucus in the Senate.
Nuclear power, for example. McConnell said he and the president both support building more nukes, which could be the centerpiece of a bipartisan energy bill.
When the Senate’s partisan complexion is more even, both sides are more inclined to deal, leading to “more balance” as McConnell put it. And, leading to better odds of enacting legislation, as the history of game-changing environmental statutes bears out.
Better odds, but not necessarily certainty. Any prediction of what Congress might do in 2011 and $1 will buy you one cup of bad coffee.
Big caveat here. For McConnell and his charges to emulate the legislative statesmanship of political forebears like Howard Baker and John Chafee, they would have to unlearn their seriously bad habit of letting the nation’s problems fester while they try to score political points that impress few outside the Beltway and media cognoscenti.
That said, there are good reasons for the environmental movement to reflect on the climate legislation pratfall and put some meat on the bones of its stated bipartisanship. The 112th Congress will be here before we know it.
Watusie // Aug 14, 2010 at 9:07 am
So you want us “enviros” to support Republicans…the same folks who chanted “drill, baby, drill” at their convention, and who, thanks to Citizens United, are now running the official candidates of Big Oil and Big Coal in many races?
Think again.
balconesfault // Aug 14, 2010 at 10:07 am
For McConnell and his charges to emulate the legislative statesmanship of political forebears like Howard Baker and John Chafee, they would have to unlearn their seriously bad habit of letting the nation’s problems fester while they try to score political points that impress few outside the Beltway and media cognoscenti.
Let’s see – the Republicans make legislative gains in the coming elections. Their natural response will be:
a) let’s keep doing exactly what we’ve been doing for the last two years, since it’s strengthened our hand and moved us closer to being in the majority, while denying Obama victories and making him look bad (and bonus points for making some major contributors very happy!)
b) for years we’ve been telling our core supporters that certain environmental issues are totally fictional, while describing any attempts to deal with them as statism, socialism, fascism, or just plain tyranny. Let’s now embrace moving forward on bipartisan but progressive legislation on those same environmental issues … all while putting off some of our biggest corporate contributors who we’ll be counting on for 2012
Do you see the problem here?
sinz54 // Aug 14, 2010 at 10:21 am
balconesfault: Do you see the problem here?
No, I don’t, actually.
Gingrich and Clinton hated each other’s guts too. Yet they were able to come together to pass the biggest reform of welfare since FDR. And there are other major bills that Gingrich got passed and then Clinton signed into law. (In fact, it was only Gibbs’ “professional Left” that walked out when Clinton signed those bills.)
Sure, the GOP will continue to give the Dems hell, and the Dems will continue to give the GOP hell. But underneath all that, they can come together to support expanded nuclear power. (You don’t have to belong to Greenpeace or believe that global warming is real, to like the fact that such plants will be built in the U.S.A. and reduce dependence on foreign oil from countries that don’t like us.)
Obama and the Republicans from wetland states can also agree on legislation to further protect wetland ecosystems. Marco Rubio doesn’t want to drain the Everglades to build industrial parks, does he?
If Obama and his fellow liberals can get off their “Save the World” kick and reframe it as attempts to preserve the historic beauty and purity of AMERICA, they would get a lot of center-right folks interested. I love this country, and I want to keep smog far from Yellowstone and Yosemite.
Chris // Aug 14, 2010 at 10:45 am
I wonder: if Obama tried to pass a law today pushing nuclear power, would the Republicans stand behind it? I doubt it. But they will in a year, if they are in office and can say it was their idea.
sinz54 // Aug 14, 2010 at 11:38 am
Chris:
Strong support for nuclear power has been in every Republican platform of the last 20 years.
http://www.historycentral.com/elections/Conventions/RepPlat2000.html
This was back before Obama even ran for Senator.
balconesfault // Aug 14, 2010 at 11:41 am
Gingrich and Clinton hated each other’s guts too.
That’s not the issue, of course.
Yes, Gingrich and Clinton worked together to pass welfare reform. Which was of course a major GOP priority. Not so much a Democratic priority, although balancing the budget to protect entitlement programs was.
Great. So Obama and Repubs can come together to support nuclear power. Another largely GOP priority.
But the GOP has created a Maginot Line over any taxes, regulations, or trading system to control CO2 emissions. No – you don’t have to be Greenpeace to believe that global warming is real – but if you think Greenpeace is a vanguard movement for the Antichrist you’re probably going to do whatever you can to block CO2 legislation.
And if you’re of the opinion that any legislation that doesn’t have significant Republican support should be blocked – then you’re not going to get CO2 legislation. Because people can talk till they’re blue in the face about a lot of Republican voters supporting CO2 legislation, but if you look at the candidates getting elected in Republican Primaries they seem to be by and large the politicians most likely to add to that Maginot Line if they’re in office.
So the reality is – whether you like it or not – if you are going to demand that no climate change legislation be passed without a significant number of GOP votes … you’re basically going to wait forever. You’re pissing over the fence at the Dems, when the problem is in your own house.
If Obama and his fellow liberals can get off their “Save the World” kick and reframe it as attempts to preserve the historic beauty and purity of AMERICA, they would get a lot of center-right folks interested.
Sheesh. Strawman much?
I love this country, and I want to keep smog far from Yellowstone and Yosemite.
We actually passed some significant legislation to work towards that back in 1991, under a Republican President and Democratic Congress. If you haven’t noticed, GOP legislators talk about the EPA as a fascist organisation for trying to enforce those laws, and Repub Gov Rick Perry down here in Texas is making the battle against EPA’s attempts to rigorously enforce the Clean Air Act as a centerpiece of his fundraising.
Anyway, smog control doesn’t do anything to combat climate change. You can control SO2 all you want and we’ll still need to worry about greenhouse gasses.
You know – the “save the world” crap.
freedomrings // Aug 14, 2010 at 12:00 pm
It’s a good strategy. I think it’s right that the gop will be more likely to deal next year. Getting in good with them now might help move your issue allong. Especially if you think some of their stated climate change denial is just talk to appease the base and to have something to hit the dems over the head with.
Chris // Aug 14, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Sinz –
That’s not the point, and you know it. I said if Obama proposed it today, would they rush to back it? If it’s been their position you would think so. But they would not — their current strategy is obstruction. Of course, if they take the House, they can then argue that they pushed for it, and so it was their “idea”.
I think you know what I was saying.
Chris // Aug 14, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Also, if conservatives dislike the “save the world” mantra so much, why are we in Iraq and Afghanistan again?
sinz54 // Aug 14, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Chris: Also, if conservatives dislike the “save the world” mantra so much, why are we in Iraq and Afghanistan again?
Because Islamist terrorists consider the United States to be the “Great Satan.”
The invasion of Iraq was the result of a theory that the main terrorist threat to the U.S. was out of the Middle East. That theory turned out to be wrong. But it NEVER had anything to do with “saving the world.”
sinz54 // Aug 14, 2010 at 12:53 pm
balconesfault: And if you’re of the opinion that any legislation that doesn’t have significant Republican support should be blocked – then you’re not going to get CO2 legislation.
You’re not going to get CO2 legislation until the American public feels more secure in their personal economics. You can’t ask someone who has been laid off for most of this past year to start paying more for electricity and gasoline too.
But you can reduce CO2 emissions somewhat, as a byproduct of other energy legislation.
All of this is depressingly familiar to those of us who were around for the Clinton health-care fight. In both cases, advocates badly misread the public mood. When the health-care debate began in 1993, 64 percent of Americans supported the idea of covering the uninsured; similarly, polls this year indicated broad support for action on climate change. But what the public supports and what it wants can be very different. Most people in 1993 had insurance; what they wanted were reduced costs and stable coverage. They turned against health-care reform when opponents convinced them that they wouldn’t get either and that the benefits would flow elsewhere.
Similarly, while people generally support energy reform, their focus isn’t really on what the world will look and feel like in 2050. For most Americans, the distant threat of global warming is not enough to prompt action….
In the midst of a downturn, it is clear that advocates have to focus public attention on the economic benefits of shifting to clean energy, as well as the risks of doing nothing. The global race is on, and, just as the tech boom of the 1990s did for the United States, clean energy will create good jobs and huge economic growth for the winner. The question is who that will be.
Right now, it’s not us. China, South Korea, Germany, Spain and France are already transitioning to clean energy, investing billions in research and creating robust domestic markets. On the very day that the Senate bill was declared dead, China announced that it is making $740 billion in new clean-energy investments, according to China Daily, the state-run English-language newspaper. China also announced that it is imposing a domestic price on carbon — essentially adding a fee to fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas that produce carbon pollution.
Such moves are not motivated solely by environmental altruism. The market for clean-energy technology is expected to double to $2.7 trillion by 2020, and it is estimated that the clean-energy sector will employ 20 million people by 2030. If we don’t act now, we’re going to be buying clean-energy products from China rather than building them here and selling them to the rest of the world. In fact, we already are. America has a trade deficit in clean-energy technology.
For the United States to get back in the lead in this energy race, we must put a price on carbon, though with a mechanism that is less complex than what cap-and-trade has become. This price will encourage industries to move to cleaner energy and will generate the revenue that the United States needs to invest in innovation in this field. With the right incentives, we can develop clean-energy technologies that are as affordable as coal and oil, creating jobs and new industries.
Reform advocates long ago began to understand the power of this message. Prominent activists — including Al Gore — started talking less about saving the planet and more about spurring economic growth, improving national security and ending pollution disasters such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
http://perspectives.thirdway.org/?p=830
Remember? That was YOUR argument–that the U.S. has to be competitive in the global “green energy” market. Or was that just a spoonful of sugar to help the cap-and-trade medicine go down?
Why not focus on the development and commercialization of green energy, just as you had argued right here on FrumForum? That would make the ultimate move away from CO2 emissions much easier than doing it today.
Chris // Aug 14, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Sinz,
That’s what SOME say. But I’ve listened to arguments for many years now on the conservative side not about protecting America, but about spreading freedom and not wanting to allow either country to fall into chaos if we left. Sounds save-the-worldish to me. Of course you can argue that the two go together, but you know darn well that this is not how it is always argued.
rbottoms // Aug 14, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Republicans as an alternative to Democrats as a way to advance policies on pollution and global warming? Is this the Comedy Channel suddenly?
The party of no-nothing anti-science, anti-Darwin, 4,000 year old Earth the champions of C02 reduction? Are you sure they even believe Carbon exists?
Chris // Aug 14, 2010 at 1:24 pm
“Are you sure they even believe Carbon exists?”
Okay, that got an actual laugh out of me.
balconesfault // Aug 14, 2010 at 5:11 pm
If the Republicans want to be taken seriously, have 20 Republican Senators propose an aggressive carbon bill that they’ll commit to voting for. Have 100 Republican House members sign up for the same.
Instead, we get a Graham here, and a … umm … is there ANY other GOP member who has committed to being willing to support a right climate change bill if it were put together on a bipartisan basis? And even Graham used the first excuse he could to backtrack on supporting his own proposals.
Face it, as long as climate change legislation would be viewed as a legislative success for Obama, it will be amazing if more than 2 or 3 GOP Senators, and 20 or 30 GOP House Members, actually voted for even the most watered down bill. And pointing to “save the earth” rhetoric as the reason why Republicans can’t do the right thing is more of a temper tantrum than a responsible political position.
As I’ve said before – I have more respect for climate change denialists than for those who understand the magnitude of the problem we face, and resist the comprehensive legislation that it would take to address the problem because a party with the wrong letter behind their name is driving the process.
ktward // Aug 14, 2010 at 5:17 pm
A few words on the feasibility of nuclear energy’s “renaissance”:
Hailing from IL — the birthplace and pioneer of nuclear energy, and I believe we have the most online reactors of any US State — I’m relatively up on the latest pros and cons, and I’m relatively familiar with certain tech advancements that have, more or less, converted some of the cons into anti-nuke partisan mythology.
But here’s the thing.
Nuclear plant construction is NOT the energy/enviro-crisis panacea as painted by many. Other enviro-safety concerns notwithstanding, there exist very real challenges in terms of economic viability, and frankly, the GOP’s quasi pro-enviro voices (much like sinz) are predictably cherry-picking and promoting data to fit their own partisan aims.
(If it needs to be said, this is precisely why ANY Party-affiliated enviro org should be immediately met with healthy skepticism.)
IMHO, build nuclear as part of a forward-thinking, comprehensive enviro/energy initiative, but build SMART both in tech/safety and economic terms. Trouble is, that jury is still very much out.
Here’s a small taste of today’s highly-credentialed thinking on the prospect of ramping up Nuclear …
Since 1969, MIT-founded Union of Concerned Scientists:
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear-economics-fact-sheet.pdf
2009: Given such high [construction] costs, a new nuclear plant can lead to significant increases in the price of electricity, even before the plant goes online. For example, Progress Energy—a utility that is building two new reactors in Florida at an expected cost of at least $17 billion— has received regulatory approval to charge ratepayers for construction work in progress (CWIP). These charges have already raised customers’ average utility bills by 10 percent— with additional increases scheduled each year—although the plants will not generate a single kilowatt of electricity for at least a decade.
…
Climate 2030: A National Blueprint for a Clean Energy Economy, the recent UCS report, provides strong evidence that new nuclear plants are not cost competitive with other electricity sources, including energy efficiency and renewable energy. That report provides a peer-reviewed analysis of the costs and benefits of reducing U.S. global warming emissions by 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and 56 percent by 2030.
The model* found that—especially given the recent escalation in cost estimates— new nuclear plants are likely to be among the more expensive options for producing low-carbon electricity.
*UCS … used a modified version of the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration National Energy Modeling System (NEMS). The model chose the combination of new power sources needed to maintain a reliable supply of electricity at the lowest cost through 2030 while also meeting the emissions targets. The model factored in the costs of building new transmission lines, integrating renewable energy technologies into the grid, and providing reserve power supplies.
Paul L. Joskow, professor of economics and management at M.I.T. and the president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a philanthropic organization supporting science and technology.
http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/4168
2009: The potential revival of nuclear power faces a number of risks and challenges that make the anticipated “renaissance” of nuclear power in the United States and other countries quite uncertain. The economics of maintaining the existing fleet of nuclear power plants, investment in new nuclear power plants, and the economic impacts of constraints on CO2 emissions, not to mention considerations of safety, waste disposal, proliferation, and spent-fuel reprocessing: all impact the feasibility of a nuclear power renaissance.
ktward // Aug 14, 2010 at 5:43 pm
When the Senate’s partisan complexion is more even, both sides are more inclined to deal, leading to “more balance” as McConnell put it.
This statement ranks as one of the Top 10 Most Rank Partisan Statements Ever.
In other words: to play the get-things-done game on The Hill, the GOP must have a certain number of marbles to play with. If it’s short of that number — whatever that number might be — the GOP just doesn’t play.
ktward // Aug 14, 2010 at 6:15 pm
@REP.
Look. I appreciate your pro-enviro motives. (I think.)
But I honestly don’t know who it is you believe you’re influencing.
Enviro groups?
They care only about the politics that affects their specific mission. Regardless of party affiliation, they’ll support ANY pol who demonstrates reliable solidarity with, and support of, their mission. They’ll never charitably splinter nor dilute their own precious resources in order to bolster the efforts of a limp partisan outfit.
Dems?
What do they need you for? They might theoretically aid YOUR efforts — though I’ve previously offered the case that any coalition you might form with a ‘Dem’ enviro org will negatively impact your cred in the eyes of the GOP — but you’ve no benefit to offer Dems. Despite your sweet meanderings above.
Republicans?
After 15 years, your org’s inroads into the GOP’s enviro psyche is a total FAIL. I don’t say this with any glee, mind you. But if you HAVE had any influence at all, it’s resulted in the wrong direction. Better to assume you’ve had zero influence.
That said, why should any org pay you any mind at all?
noufa // Aug 14, 2010 at 11:43 pm
I disagree, ktward. Enviro groups would be wise to work with Republicans. They could do so by following the NRA’s example.
The NRA often endorses Democrat incumbents over a slightly more pro-gun Republican challenger. They essentially say “We don’t like everything about you, but we understand that politics is the art of compromise. By backing you, we’re rewarding the Democratic Party’s choice of a relatively pro-gun candidate.”
The NRA sees itself as more than a wing of the Republican Party. Yes, Republicans generally make better allies. But they know their mission is also to change the culture in the Democratic Party. The result is an organization with real influence. They make it easier for Democrats endorse candidates like Bart Stupak, Bill Ownes & Ben Nelson. They make it harder to endorse candidates like Barbara Boxer, Barney Frank & Bobby Rush.
This has caused many 2nd amendment proponents to defect to organizations like GOA. I’m still a card-carrying NRA member. I prefer to belong to organizations with clout.
balconesfault // Aug 15, 2010 at 4:28 am
noufa: I disagree, ktward. Enviro groups would be wise to work with Republicans.
I fail to see how this is inconsistent with what ktward wrote:
Enviro groups?
They care only about the politics that affects their specific mission. Regardless of party affiliation, they’ll support ANY pol who demonstrates reliable solidarity with, and support of, their mission.
The problem is one that I pointed out the other day – in the Senate, for example, there are only 2 Republicans with a League of Conservation Voters rating higher than 36 out of 100 – the two ladies from Maine. In the House, there were 11 Republicans with an LCV rating higher than 43. In other words, for environmental groups, finding Republican incumbents who aren’t overtly hostile is kind of a challenge unto itself.
ds // Aug 15, 2010 at 9:48 pm
The enviro groups do work with Republicans who support their goals. All five of them.
Every interest group is smart enough to know that it pays to have allies on both sides of the aisle, but it doesn’t work when one party is actively hostile to your interests.